As those living in communities along British Columbia’s rugged coastline know quite well, the internet connection isn’t always great. Up and down speeds and long periods of disconnection have for decades been standard to coastal BC. However, there has finally been some good news: on March 13th 2018, it was announced that many of the province’s coastal communities would receive improved digital infrastructure, in the form of a subsea fibre-optic cable running from Prince Rupert to Vancouver, with landings at multiple coastal communities along its route. Small communities across the North Coast, Kitimat-Stikine, Central Coast, Sunshine Coast, Powell River, and Vancouver Island will receive $83.6 million dollars in combined funding from Federal and Provincial Governments, alongside private investors to fund the cable [1]. It will benefit 187 communities that line the province’s coast, 57 of which are First Nations communities. According to the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, Navdeep Bains, these improvements will facilitate rural financial development, increase access to different types of information, and bridge the disparity between Canadians who have access to the internet and other information technologies, and those who don’t – otherwise known as the Canadian digital divide. Over the next months, it looks like the coast is going to get a lot more connected [2].
The long list of promises made by the Federal and Provincial governments however, brings new questions about what makes for an improved digital experience for peoples across BC. Can infrastructure alone make these promises a reality? Will communities receiving improved internet access have the necessary skills to navigate the online world? Canadian digital policy needs to be wary here of the assumption that infrastructure alone can bridge gaps in digital literacy that so notably separates coastal communities from metropolitan British Columbia. One solution may be to include additional digital policy which attributes a portion of the funds dedicated to digital infrastructure, directly towards the development of relevant, regional online content. By promoting local online material, additional incentive is created for coastal communities to develop advanced digital literacy skills and create coastal user-generated content. With this joint program of improved broadband infrastructure in collaboration with policies that finance local online content production, the coastal digital divide can be taken seriously as a fundamental impediment to community success.
This two-sided approach might be the commitment necessary to support the active improvement of coastal internet. First, with increases in digital participation, developing local content can become a mechanism for employment, outside of the forestry and fishing industries upon which many coastal communities traditionally depend [3]. As recommended by Rural British Columbia Discussion Series, through the promotion of local content, residents play an active role in promoting engagement with emerging employment sectors (such as technology and digital media) in previously underserved rural areas [4]. Simultaneously, this digital independence supports the sharing of local and oral histories, traditional knowledge, as well as a heightened sense of place, crucial to communities along the coast [5]. This is also necessary in facilitating processes of decolonization in digital policy, as it gives the peoples of the coast the digital opportunities they are entitled to on their own terms. Increased digital literacy then initiates a cyclical process of content creation, opportunity and financial self-reliance for the benefit of coastal communities [6]. Policy frameworks should move beyond the naive assumption that infrastructure alone will guide digital participation, and instead looks to a community-based framework that increases the breadth and depth of the offerings available on the open internet to citizens of coastal BC.
This piece was published as part of our guest blogger series! Aaron is a graduate student from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, who answered our call for submissions.
If you’re interested in contributing a guest blog post to Digital Tattoo, please contact our editorial team at: digital.tattoo@ubc.ca
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